Recently installed as artist-in-residence at Cambridge Corn Exchange, the celebrated musician talks to PAUL KIRKLEY about family, fatherhood and his constant companion - the cello.

JULIAN Lloyd Webber, it’s fair to say, is a man who likes to keep busy. Rarely can thumbs have gone so untwiddled, heels so unkicked, grass kept so short underfoot. As well as a prolific performing and recording schedule, Britain’s most celebrated cellist serves as President of the Elgar Society, Vice President of the Delius Society, Patron of Music in Hospitals, is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music, an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust and sits on the board of governors of the Southbank Centre. Oh, and he’s just become a new dad at 60. When on earth does he find the time to practise?

“Good question,” says Lloyd Webber, with just a hint of a rueful chuckle. “What I do is try to really concentrate on the things that are key to me – the really important things. Because you can’t be in 10 places at once.”

Four decades after making his professional debut, performing Sir Arthur Bliss’ Cello Concerto at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in 1972, does a player of Lloyd Webber’s stature even still need to practise, I wonder. “Oh yes,” he insists. “Every day. The cello’s not an instrument you can just pick up and put down – you do have to keep at it.”

On top of all these commitments, he has now added another string to his bow (sorry) by taking on the role of the Cambridge Corn Exchange’s artist-in-residence.

“It’s very exciting because it’s a new idea,” he explains. “It’s a three-year residency and I’ll be doing two or three concerts and events a year. I’ll be mixing the music up and trying to include pieces that are well known and also not so well known, hoping to build a situation where the audience will trust me and trust my choices.

“There’s obviously a huge musical tradition in Cambridge – particularly a choral tradition, but orchestras as well, especially those connected with the university. It’s a very interesting place to try something like this. It’s going to be a challenge and I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes.”

Part of the residency’s remit involves outreach work to foster an interest in classical music among young people. It’s a subject close to Lloyd Webber’s heart (“Well, it’s the future, isn’t it?”), and the motivation behind his ongoing involvement with yet another extracurricular commitment, the In Harmony programme, designed to bring classical music to children in deprived areas of the country.

“In Harmony is one of those key projects that I always make time for,” he says. “It’s three projects around the country, one not so far away from Cambridge in Norwich. I’m really hopeful it will go on growing.”

Are some kids harder to win round than others? “No, they love it,” he says. “We start with them as young as four, and they absolutely love it. They all work together, and just really enjoy it. We’ve been going for around three years now and I don’t think a single child has dropped out of it.”

It must be hugely rewarding. “It’s fantastic. The project is based on a Venzuelan model, and there were some doubters here who thought this country was probably too rich to need something like this. But those people have never been to these areas: there are some very, very deprived parts of England.”

One of Lloyd Webber’s first duties as the Corn Exchange’s artist-in-residence was attending the opening date of the venue’s current, Cambridge News-backed Classical Concert Season in October. But his engagement will begin in earnest this Saturday, when he takes to the stage for a recital of works including Bach’s Adagio in G, Bridge’s Scherzetto and Elegy, Britten’s Scherzo Pizzicato, Fauré’s Elegie, Delius’ Sonata, his father William Lloyd Webber’s Nocture, and concluding with Rachmaninov’s lyrical Sonata.

“We wanted to do the Rachmaninov Sonata because it’s a fantastic, full-blooded piece of music,” he explains. “And it’s the 150th anniversary of Delius’ birth in January, so I particularly wanted to play the Delius Sonata.” Lloyd Webber will be accompanied, as ever, by his trusty ‘Barjansky’ Stradavarius, created by the legendary Italian luthier circa 1690.

“It’s named after a Russian cellist, Alexander Barjansky, who played the instrument a lot in the early years of the last century,” he explains. “In fact, funnily enough he premiered the Delius Cello Concerto. The cello has quite a history.

“It’s such a fantastic cello, but I don’t really think of it as mine – I’m just using it at the moment until the next person does. These instruments need to be played – they shouldn’t be shut away in museums. I’m very, very fortunate to play it.”

Music runs through the Lloyd Webber family like a watermark: alongside his father – an acclaimed organist as well as a composer – his mother, Jean Johnstone, was a gifted pianist, and both Julian and his older brother Andrew – who would, of course, go on to be the most successful musical theatre composer of the age – were born into a house that rang to the sound of classical repertoire. Did neither of the boys ever feel like rebelling and, say, starting a rock band?

“Well I guess in some way Andrew has rebelled because my father was a totally classical musician and my brother always loved the theatre, and always wanted to write musicals,” he muses. “So in his own way he did do his own thing. And in some ways so did I, because there had never been a string player in the family before.

“Both my parents provided music in the background – there was a huge amount of music in the home, and I guess we both took it from there, really. That’s one of the reasons I believe so much in music education – who knows if we’d have done music at all if there hadn’t been all that music in the family.”

Were he and his brother competitive, musically? “Not really. Andrew was never interested in performing, and I was never interested in composing, so we kind of did our own thing.”

Stepping back a generation, William Lloyd Webber’s father was a plumber who just happened to be a keen organ buff. Is it fair to say this modern musical dynasty can be traced back to that singular passion? “I think so,” says Lloyd Webber. “I hardly remember my grandfather, but he was apparently a good singer and used to be in various choirs and things. He loved the organ, but he was basically a self-employed plumber.”

Over the past 40 years, Lloyd Webber has collaborated with musicians as diverse as Georg Solti, Stéphane Grappelli and Elton John; he has premiered more than 50 new works – many written especially for him – by the likes of Malcolm Arnold, Joaquín Rodrigo, Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, while his much-lauded recordings include the Dvorák Cello Concerto, Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, Britten’s Cello Symphony, Walston’s Cello Concerto and Phantasia, in which he reworked his brother’s score for The Phantom of the Opera for cello and violin.

But pushed to name a career highlight, it is perhaps not surprising he chooses his BRIT Award-winning take on the Elgar Cello Concerto, conducted by the great Yehudi Menuhin, which was chosen as the finest ever version of that iconic piece – even besting Jacqueline du Pré’s legendary interpretation – by BBC Music Magazine.

Lloyd Webber was in his mid-30s when he made the recording; Menuhin was approaching 70. Did he feel intimidated at all? “When I first met him, yes,” he says, candidly. “When I first went to play the concerto I was very scared. But he was such a fantastic man, and a wonderful musician. I found him a great inspiration. Of course, he knew Elgar very well – Elgar conducted him in the Violin Concerto. As well as the recording, we toured a lot with it: we went to Australia, Japan – an amazing experience.”

The most recent addition to the Lloyd Webber family, Jasmine Orienta, was born in June last year, just two months after her father’s 60th birthday. I ask how he is coping with the sleepless nights after a gap of almost 20 years (his first child, David, from a previous marriage, was born in 1992), to say nothing of that hectic schedule.

“Well, my wife Jiaxin Cheng, who is also a cellist, has been extremely supportive,” he says. “She, I have to say, is bearing the brunt of it, because I have to go out there and do my concerts.”

It might sound to some like a lonely, nomadic life – travelling from concert to concert, town to town, while his wife is left at home holding the baby. But, of course, you’re never truly alone with a Strad. We return to the subject of Lloyd Webber’s other great life partner.

“The cello goes everywhere with me,” he says. “I don’t have another one. It has a pretty rigorous routine. If you’re going on the plane, it has to have its own seat. “But that would be the same for any instrument – it’s not so much about the value: to every player, his own instrument is invaluable. It’s part of who the musician is.”